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The Fall of the Mountain
The Fall of the Mountain was fought in the year 350. It was the first major battle in almost nine years, as both forces were recovering from the destruction of Versano and before that, Arlessa. Camdoria in this time was rebuilding their kingdom and King Rendon was busy with that, sending Gregor in his place to deal with military matters. Despite being on the field for years, due to spite from Lord Aleor Elesnata of Drazin, Gregor found it hard at first to take up command, but he slowly won the trust of the other Lords and Ladies. The battle itself was over a mountain pass that linked Camdoria and the Imperial ruling province, and whoever had control of it would gain a huge advantage in the war, as the only other way was around the mountain range, a journey that could take months for an army. The battle itself was going well for the Royalists, who ambushed the Imperials as they marched through the pass. However, when reinforcements arrived that included a Deva known only as the Mountain, it threw the balance towards the Imperials. Though, due to unknown reasons, it went berserk and began to kill everything around it, only stopped after Elyssia imbued some of her own energy in it to stun it before cutting off its head, a death that was so sudden that the energy quickly exploded from the body, destroying and changing the landscape around it. Hours after the battle, a ceasefire was declared, most commanders on both sides of the conflict sick of fighting. In the aftermath was also the founding the leading body of the Royal Alliance, now known as the High Council of Lords Proven, led at first by King Gregor Kalevala, only becoming king of Camdoria moments after the founding of the council. The peace continued for ten years, in which both sides repaired the damage done against them, as well training of more men. When the ceasefire ran out, the war began again in earnest, and the armies renewed their fight where they ended it...a place now called the Hollow Fields. The Tale "No!" a voice cried out in the dark, a voice of a girl who lived in the blurred and painful memories of the past. She remembered being taken from her family when she was young, and seeing her home burnt to ash in an instant. The Fey stealing her to a place she did not know, where she was tied down to a table. Magic and knives cutting her open, changing her, making her feel pain she had never felt before, making her - Elyssia opened her eyes, distracting herself from her meditative state. While she hadn't required sleep for centuries, she still needed rest, time to restore the reservoir of magical energy within. Placed out before her was a plate of apples and pears cut into slices, which she took into her hands and began to eat them, enjoying the sweet taste. She was in the Royalist encampment in the fields of Filven, just before the range of mountains that separated the Royalist Alliance from the Imperial Empire. Behind them, only a few miles away were the ruins of Versano, still as wretched a place as when it fell nine years ago. Before them was a pass through the mountains, the only way through to the Empire from Camdoria without seeking to march for weeks north or south. "Lady, Crown Prince Gregor Kalevala wishes your presence in the command tent" a shy page told her from a distance away. Despite the years she had been with the Royal army under the leadership of Camdoria, most people found her unnerving...except for Gregor himself, someone she knew she could trust. She got up and followed the young boy to a nearby large tent, ignoring the whispers directed at her, something she had grown used to easily. She entered inside, knowing already who was inside due to her magic sight. The group looked up at her as she entered and took her place nearby Gregor, who sat now in the chair his cousin used to sit, now too ill to take part in most meetings. "Now that Elyssia is here, I call this meeting to begin, Lord Slir of the Kazmir, any word from our scouts?" Gregor began "Not all have returned as of yet, but the ones who have say that there are no Imperials in the immediate area besides the other area of the pass, so we should only expect enemies from there" Slir answered back, his half fey features easy to see. "Very well, with that in mind, how shall we decide todays order of battle?" Gregor asked the lords seated with him, all who began to say the usual stuff, this group of archers shall be under command of so and so, pikemen we'll deploy here, stuff that Elyssia knew was not important to her so she began to go back to her meditative state, until she heard her name. "And what shall we do with the Deva...Elyssia?" asked Lord Aleor Elesnata of Drazin, a displeasing sneer on his face. Lord Aleor had always been jealous of Camdoria's influence in the Alliance, believing that because Drazin were the first to secede from the Empire, they should be in charge. As of yet, besides a few first battles that ended in disaster for the Alliance, Camdoria first under Rendon and now Gregor led the Alliance in military matters. "Elyssia will do whatever she feels is necessary; none of us have enough authority besides asking her to participate in today's battle." Gregor quickly replied, annoyance in his voice. Elyssia knew that Aleor had been causing Gregor problems ever since he stepped in from his cousin to take charge in day to day matters. "She seems to listen to you quite eagerly, you could probably tell her to do anything you wanted" Aleor responded, his voice starting to rise in anger "I'm sure you've already asked her to do some things that don't even have anything to do with -" "That is enough Aleor! You are speaking as if you are a child jealous of another who has a bigger toy, not a lord of a kingdom! Act like it or leave the tent to the adults!" Lady Tineth Marco of Haverly quickly spoke, quieting Aleor to a stupor, and even calming Gregor who till then was reaching for his dagger at his waist. Elyssia smiled to herself at the naivety of mortals, before she stepped forward to speak. "I will do whatever is necessary to bring about defeat of the armies of the dead false god. What exactly that will be, I do not know, for I cannot see the future, but I will strive to see victory." She finished, silencing everyone in the tent before she walked out and left. "Archers! Volley!" the sergeants cried out and arrows rained down on the Imperial forces marching through the pass. Royalist forces then swept in from above, attacking the Imperials from both sides. It soon became chaos, barely able to tell friend from foe as the ground became littered with the dead. Elyssia looked down from above, breathed in deep and started her work. She called forth the magic within her and the earth, creating great balls of energy which she sent forth at the enemy. They cut down Imperial soldiers like a scythe cuts down wheat, before dissipating as the energy in them ran out. She grabbed her bladed staff and walked forth into the melee, striking down any Imperial before her. She came up on a wounded Royalist who was holding together his gut together to stem the bleeding, and she knelt down beside him. She placed her hand over the wound, sending magical energy into the cut which caused the muscle to knit, the skin to heal and replenished the blood loss. "Thank you Deva" the man replied, before standing up and returning into the fray. It seems as if she wasn't needed, the Royalists appeared to have the enemy on the run. "Enemy reinforcments! By the Court, what is tha-" a man shouted, before a large explosion consumed him and all the men around him. Elyssia looked up, seeing Imperial forces, but blanched at what else she saw. It was another Deva, one that had been found and being used by the Imperials. He looked up, palm open to another group of Royalist soldiers...Elyssia could feel the magical energy forming before it fired out, wiping out the men he pointed at. By now the Royalists had regained their senses and charged at the Imperial lines, the chaos of regular battle resuming. It was not too dangerous to shoot energy into the group of people, so Elyssia charged, swinging her bladed staff in a large arc, cutting an Imperial in half. She saw the other Deva wade through the crowd, using his fists to smash men aside. Gregor then appeared behind the Deva and charged, cutting through its calf. The Deva turned around and back handed Gregor into a wall, knocking him out cold. The Deva himself then seemed to go berserk, attacking everyone and everything around him. "It's going rampant! Flee, flee now!" Elyssia shouted, and the men wise enough to listen to her ran. Gregor was still out cold and wasn't getting up, while the Deva was killing everything around him, whether with magical blasts or with its fists. Elyssia ran over to Gregor and got him to his feet, imbuing him with magical energy to repair any internal injuries he may have received. He still would not wake, so she hauled him over her shoulder and would've sprinted out of there, except the Deva appeared before her, blood dripping from his hands and all over its body. She placed Gregor down and walked over to it, staff in hand. It was bigger than her, at least by two feet and she could sense a great rage within him. Before she could decide what to do, it charged, swinging a fist where her head would have been if she did not move aside a split second earlier. She at the same time stabbed the staff into his chest, and forced energy to flow through it like lightning through a metal rod. "I'm sorry brother" she whispered, before sweeping his feet from beneath him, cutting off his head when he hit the ground. Lines of energy began to appear all over the corpse, and she knew she had no time to run. She knelt down quickly beside Gregor, preparing a shield of energy that saved his life nine years ago, but to encompass both of them and a lot more powerful. She just finished the vinal incantation when the corpse turned bright white, before exploding in violent fashion, a light soon following engulfing all before it. It hit the shield and for the first time in three hundred years, Elyssia knew true darkness for a while. Gregor awoke a few hours later, checking first to see if he was okay, then looked to the landscape around him. If he didn't know any better, he would have thought he had been transported to a nightmarish realm... For miles around, instead of the pass between the mountains, it was clear, grey plains around him for miles. No corpses from the battle, nothing living or dead...just the ground beneath him and, Elyssia! he could see and smell a magical taint in the air and the earth. At that moment, the Deva awoke, turning on her side and pushing herself to her feet, visibly injured. "This is we were only fighting only hours ago...when that Deva died, there was so much built up energy in him that exited as quickly and violently as it could, tainting everything around it...this land shall remain like this till the end of time" she explained, sorrow apparent in her voice. It seems during the time before the blast, Elyssia could not raise the power to protect them both, instead diverting all her power to create a stronger shield around Gregor. Suddenly, the sound of horses could be heard in the distance, from two directions which soon revealed themselves to be Imperial and Royalist cavalry platoons. When the two groups spotted each other, they charged at each other, weapons being drawn and ready to resume conflict...even if that meant on top of Gregor and Elyssia. "Elyssia...stop them, I need to speak to all of them now!" Gregor quickly commanded, to which she complied, tapping the last reserves of energy as she smashed her hands together, sending a sheet of energy into the sky and along the ground to force the horse to stop in their tracks, only metres from each other. Gregor himself stood up and began to address both groups of men, shouting at them. "For shame! We as mortal men have suffered a great calamity to both our sides, and instead of consoling each other over what we have lost, we continue to slaughter each other?! We are men, not beasts who would only kill till there is nothing left. We have now been fighting for twenty years, and all it has brought is bloodshed! misery! and great destruction to us all! Look around you! Look at the destruction that has been wrought from our petty squabbles!” As he gestured to the land around them, both sides surveyed to find not a single standing object on the horizon. Swamp and pools of stagnant water were the only thing for miles, with the occasional rubble pile and mound of dirt. “Imperial soldiers, you are to go back and inform your superiors that us of the Royalist Alliance desire peace...there has been too much life lost. Now go, leave!" he commanded. The Imperial men turned their horses begrudgingly and rode back to camp, some surprised that they obeyed an enemy’s commands so easily. To the Royalists, he turned and asked "Please bear Elyssia and I back to camp, I'm afraid we don't have the energy to walk…" He trailed off, looking to his side and seeing Elyssia lying in a pile of rubble. “No!” I screamed, running over to her and scooping her head up in his arms. It took 5 men and a threat of violence to get Gregor on a horse, hysterical and incredibly wounded in every sense of the word as they ride double back to camp. Aftermath "You decided what?!" Lord Aleor Elesnata shouted at Gregor "We've been fighting for twenty years, nearly have defeated them, and YOU then decide we should now be at peace! What idiocy made you think this was wise?!" It a few hours later, after an Imperial platoon under the banner of peace came forth and talked with Gregor. They left an hour later, and now the Royalist Alliance and the Imperial Empire had a minimum ten-year ceasefire treaty, signed. "How, Lord Aleor? How are we to defeat them, and with what armies? The majority of our forces were just killed in an explosion that destroyed a sodding mountain range and tainted the fields of everything within a day’s ride! All we have left are scouts and garrison forces...you want to fight the Imperials with those? Now silence, for this is not what I gathered you and the other Lords here for, so grab a cup of wine and hold your tongue for just a moment!" Gregor responded, a mixture of pure anger, loss and more authority in his voice than even his cousin ever had. The camp had been moved soon after the Imperials left, and they were now at the new city of Brannick, which only nine years ago was a fort built to protect the refugees of Versano. The fields they had been camped on had changed, the soil becoming a sickly grey colour, the plants dying and the water tasted filthy. All the Lords of the Alliance were now in the command tent, wondering why they were summoned. "Peace is now ahead of us and soon we shall want to head our own separate ways. However, we need a structure in our Alliance that will allow us to stay united, regardless of peace or war. I propose we set up a council of leaders of the territories and kingdoms of the Alliance, being led by one of those lords. This group would meet once a year to vote for a new leader, and meet at least twice a year to discuss matters of importance...what say you?". The Lords and Ladies sitting with Gregor looked at each other, murmuring with the people sitting next to each other, before they all said, one by one "Agreed". "So, who will be leading this council to start off with?" Aleor asked and before anyone else could voice an opinion Lady Tineth Marco of Haverly spoke "Why not Crown Prince Gregor Kalevala? He has personally led you in war for nine years, has been fighting with the soldiers even longer, earning their respect and who will adore him, as well as has the respect of the Imperial Empire, able to arrange a cease-fire without giving anything up." The others looked at each other, muttering and murmuring once more before they all agreed...except for one lord. "This is an outrage! You will listen to a charlatan and allow an upstart to command us all? It was bad enough that he was allowed to lead our soldiers to their deaths on the field of battle! I shall leave until you all see common sense and choose a new leader!" Aleor cried out angrily, but when no-one said anything, he threw his goblet and stormed out of the tent. "Hail the first Lord Elect!" "Hail! Hail!" "My Lord Prince?" a timid voice was suddenly heard and the council turned to see a young page in Camdorian colours in the tent. "It's King Rendon...he's dead, died in his sleep...I'm sorry my Lord...my King" he said, before quickly leaving the tent to spread word of the new King of Camdoria. The other Lords and Ladies offered their condolences, before they walked out one by one to leave Lord-Elect, King Gregor Kalevala alone.